skin and bones

American  

Or skin and bone

noun

1. a condition or state of extreme thinness, usually the result of malnutrition; emaciation.

   Anorexia had reduced her to skin and bones.

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skin and bones Idioms  

1. Painfully thin, emaciated. This phrase often is expanded to nothing but skin and bones, as in She came home from her trip nothing but skin and bones. This hyperbolic expression—one could hardly be alive without some flesh—dates from the early 1400s.

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Etymology

Origin of skin and bones

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50

Example Sentences

Baroness Golding said her dad told her of people at the camps who were "skin and bones with vacant eyes".

From BBC • May 5, 2025

The last time their daughter saw her father, "he couldn't get out of bed. He was literally skin and bones," Gamboa said.

From Salon • Apr. 10, 2023

When you take a collagen supplement, that collagen probably comes from cow, pig and fish parts, such as tendons, skin and bones.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 2, 2023

Now he weighed only what skin and bones do.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 29, 2022

The ordeal had reduced us to skin and bones.

From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

Related Words

• bony
• gaunt
• scrawny
• skeletal
• skinny